Young Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years

By Sharry Wilson

“A supremely compelling chronicle” of Neil Young’s early life (Rolling Stone).
 
Covering the years from 1945 to 1966, this book documents the childhood and teenage life of Canadian musician and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young. From his birth in Toronto through his school years in Florida, Ontario, and Manitoba, the book examines the development of Young’s unique talent against a backdrop of shifting postwar values, a turbulent family history, and a musical revolution in the making—and includes many previously unseen photos and set lists.
 
“Not only takes us on Neil’s voyage but also uncovers life in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s in Ontario and Manitoba . . . Wonderful.” —Bernie Finkelstein, author of True North: A Life In the Music Business
 
“Having covered Neil Young for a good portion of his career, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the man and his music. I was wrong. Sharry Wilson’s book, marked by enormous depth of study and research, opens windows into Young’s early life and creative development I never knew existed.” —Dave Zimmer, author, Crosby, Stills & Nash: The Biography

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781770905993

Book preview

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PRAISE FOR YOUNG NEIL

"Sharry Wilson’s impeccably researched and written, beautifully illustrated Young Neil is the definitive chronicle of a Canadian icon’s early years in his home and native land. Essential reading for diehard Neil Young fans, this book offers a lovingly detailed portrait of Canadian life in the middle of the 20th century, and of a sensitive young man who put his music above all else."

— Kevin Chong, author of Neil Young Nation and Northern Dancer

A compelling look at the first 20 years of Neil Young’s life as he sets out on his journey to find a heart of gold. Sharry Wilson not only takes us on Neil’s voyage but also uncovers life in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s in Ontario and Manitoba. A wonderful study of one the world’s great artists written with passion and an obvious love for her subject.

— Bernie Finkelstein, founder of True North Records and author of True North: A Life in the Music Business

Really enjoyed the book — especially the early years prior to Winnipeg — fun strolling down memory lane.

— Ken Smyth, drummer, The Squires

YOUNG NEIL

THE SUGAR MOUNTAIN YEARS

SHARRY WILSON

ECW

For Scott Sandie,

who was there at the beginning

and saw the possibilities

When I get big I’m gonna get an electric guitar. When I get real big.

— Neil Young, Live Rust (1979)

ó PART ONE ó

BORN IN ONTARIO

I was born in Ontario

Where the black fly bites and the green grass grows.

That’s where I learned most of what I know

’Cause you don’t learn much when you start to grow old.

I left home at a tender young age

’Cause Mum and Daddy never seemed to stay

In any one place for very long

So we just kept moving, moving on.

— Neil Young, Born in Ontario

ó 1 ó

IN THE BEGINNING …

IT WAS A HARSH AND unwelcoming winter night — hardly unusual for early February in Toronto. A blizzard had rendered travel precarious. Only the hardiest souls ventured out.

On the morning of February 5, 1945, city residents woke to over 12 centimetres of fresh snow, bringing the total snow­fall since November to more than 1.5 metres — more than would normally fall over an entire winter. And although the snow was not in itself overwhelming, it was accompanied by frigid, blinding winds.

Scott Young, then a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, was in Toronto on medical leave for fatigue, spending time with his wife, Rassy, and their nearly three-year-old son Bob. Scott was to undergo tests at a hospital in Ottawa, and Rassy and Bob planned to join him at the Lord Elgin Hotel during his recovery. But the snowstorm forced them to revise their travel plans.

They were invited to take refuge overnight in the home of good friends Ian and Lola Munro¹ at 361 Soudan Avenue, near the intersection of Eglinton Avenue East and Mount Pleasant Road in what was then a northern suburb of the city. The Youngs had been visiting the Munros as the day passed and weather conditions worsened.

Ian retrieved a spare mattress and put it on the dining-room floor as a makeshift bed for Scott and Rassy. The couple had been apart for a long period due to the demands of Scott’s service. Happily reunited, they quietly made love as the snow sifted and deepened outside the darkened house. Scott Young writes:

I know the exact time when Neil was conceived. I remember the street in Toronto, the wild February blizzard through which only the hardiest moved, on skis, sliding downtown through otherwise empty streets to otherwise empty offices. All trains were marooned or cancelled.²

NEIL YOUNG’S FATHER HAD ALREADY led a diverse and in some ways uniquely Canadian life. Born in Cypress River, Manitoba, in 1918, Scott’s first job, at age 16, was manning the desk of a tobacco wholesaler in Winnipeg. He was a hockey fan from an early age — in 1935 he lined up for hours to buy a $1 ticket to the Memorial Cup final between the Winnipeg Monarchs and the Sudbury Wolves. His literary career began in 1936, when he took a job as a copy boy at the Winnipeg Free Press.

Scott Young, Maclean’s Articles Editor, 1945-48. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (06-002 Box 1)]

361 Soudan Avenue. [© 2010 Sharry Wilson]

Aerial photo of Toronto General Hospital, 1951. Neil was born in the Private Patients’ Pavilion, the T-shaped structure with the circular driveway in front. [University Health Network Archives, Toronto]

Scott Young in naval dress (circa 1945). [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (06-002 Box 1)]

In June 1940 Scott married Rassy. Born Edna Blow Ragland in 1918, Rassy was given her nickname — Rastus, later shortened to Rassy — by her father. She was the youngest of three daughters born to William N. Ragland³ (a.k.a. Rags or Daddy to one and all) and his wife, Perle. Her two older sisters were Lavinia, known as Toots, and Virginia, nicknamed Snooky.

The marriage began on a troubled note, with Rassy facing an unwanted pregnancy. Neither she nor Scott was prepared to face the prospect of raising a child so soon and under their financial circumstances. Rassy told Scott she did not want him involved in what she decided should happen next. She tried various home remedies without success and eventually paid $15 for an illegal kitchen-table abortion that left her seriously ill. She recovered slowly, and according to Scott both of them regretted the decision.

Their relationship survived, and in November 1940 Scott left the Winnipeg Free Press to take a new job on the night rewrite desk with the Canadian Press in Toronto. Scott’s uncle Jack Paterson,⁴ then assistant editor at Maclean’s, the iconic news and culture magazine, welcomed them to the city and found an apartment for them; Jack’s wife, Ruth, helped them settle in.

Scott and Rassy’s first son, Bob, was born on April 27, 1942. Five months later Scott was sent by cp to England, where for two years he wrote about the war. In 1944 he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve as an ordinary seaman. Later that year he was commissioned and served in the landings in southern France and Greece, and with Royal Navy torpedo boats in the Adriatic.

Scott had come home suffering from chronic fatigue and weight loss. After the storm in Toronto, he completed the medical tests in Ottawa, but no serious problem was discovered, and following some rest and recovery he learned about a new position in the information branch of the navy. Scott was interested, and he secured the posting as assistant to Clyde Gilmour, lieutenant and chief public relations officer to the Flag Officer Newfoundland in St. John’s. Gilmour would go on to achieve success as a print journalist and radio broadcaster and later enjoyed a half-century association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (cbc), where his weekly music program, Gilmour’s Albums, was a much-loved staple. Scott was soon promoted to lieutenant and succeeded Gilmour as chief public relations officer (CPRO-Newfoundland).

When the war in Europe ended a few months later, Scott had volunteered for duty in the Pacific. On leave for several weeks before reporting for duty, Scott met Rassy and Bob in Toronto in early August. They were staying with friends when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A few days later Scott received a telegram from Ottawa — he was to remain on leave until further notice. When the Japanese formally surrendered on September 2, 1945, Scott was released from the service.

A civilian again, he needed to find a full-time job and a place for his family to live — Scott and Rassy began to search for a new home in earnest. Bob was an active three-year-old, and by this time Rassy was at an advanced stage of her second pregnancy. Repeatedly rejected by landlords and rental agents who were reluctant to rent to families with young children, they decided to try and scrape together a minimum down payment on a home of their own.

Scott found work again at the Canadian Press. His mana­ger, Gillis Purcell, had real-estate connections, and Gil’s endorsement helped Scott and Rassy purchase a new three-bedroom bungalow in north Toronto, at 335 Brooke Avenue,⁵ near the intersection of Lawrence Avenue and Avenue Road. Gil guaranteed their security for a $500 down payment and the builder agreed to reduce the price of the house by $500 to $6,500.

The Young family had barely settled into their new digs when Rassy went into labour. They didn’t own a car, but a friendly next-door neighbour drove them to Toronto General Hospital, where Rassy was admitted to the Private Patients’ Pavilion, later renamed the Thomas J. Bell Wing.⁶ It was a plush environment in which to give birth. The ornate nine-storey, T-shaped structure, with a cut-stone entrance and Doric facade, was a complete hospital unto itself, accommodating more than 300 private and semi-private patients. It had officially opened on April 24, 1930, in an elaborate cere­mony in which Ontario’s Lieutenant-Governor W. D. Ross unlocked the door with a gold key, accompanied by the music of Romanelli’s Orchestra. Mary L. Burcher, an executive member of the Canadian Hospital Association and a guest at the opening, said the new structure was suggestive of a palatial and exclusive hotel.⁷ Construction, the Canadian architectural and engineering journal of the day, glowingly wrote:

Every unpleasant feature usually associated with hospitals has been most carefully eliminated from this building and a home-like atmosphere has been created.… The rotunda of dark panelled treatment, the operating and anaesthesia rooms of mother-of-pearl finish, the gleaming nickelled monel metal fixtures, the wood finished metal beds and furniture, the chintz-covered chairs, the colourful curtains, the Persian rugs and the artistic lighting fixtures are all components in a well thought out and skilfully executed colour scheme.⁸

The Private Patients’ Pavilion was also a source of controversy in the days before Canada’s national health insurance pro­gram. Private patient facilities like this one brought into stark contrast the disparity in medical care between the poor and the more privileged classes.

It was in this environment that Neil Young first opened his eyes at 6:45 a.m. on Monday, November 12. Neil Percival Young⁹ is the full name recorded on his birth certificate, according to his father. His first name paid homage to Rassy and Scott’s brother-in-law, Neil Hoogstraten,¹⁰ who married Rassy’s sister Lavinia, and his middle name was likely a nod to Scott’s father, Percy Andrew Young.¹¹

Conceived during a time of war, Neil was born into a world more or less at peace. The war was over, though labour conflict continued. Strike Settlement Hope Rises, proclaimed the headline of the November 12 issue of the Toronto Daily Star — workers at a Ford assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario, were still on strike but close to an agreement. In other news, Prime Minister Mackenzie King paid his respects to fallen soldiers during Armistice Day ceremonies at the Arlington National Cemetery, where he stood alongside U.S. president Harry Truman and Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee of Great Britain. The three leaders were in Washington to attend the first full working session of the U.S.-Canada-Britain conference on atomic power.

In Toronto, according to the paper’s entertainment pages, the Ice Capades of 1946 had an upcoming engagement at Maple Leaf Gardens, The Hasty Heart was playing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, and a jazz concert featuring Charlie Parker was scheduled for November 14 at Massey Hall. Movies showing at cinemas across the city included Kismet, The Devil and Miss Jones, Pennies from Heaven, Shanghai Cobra and House of Frankenstein.

NEIL WAS SOON BROUGHT HOME to what was apparently a happy and successful Canadian family. Scott had been hired at Maclean’s, and would retain his position as articles editor for the next three years. The magazine’s editor, W. Arthur Irwin, gave Scott and many other notable Canadian writers their first solid start. He sent Scott to Vancouver with instructions to hire Pierre Berton,¹² then the world’s youngest city editor at the Sun. Young was to entice him with an offer of $4,000 to $4,500 for the position of assignments editor. (I’ll take the $4,500, Berton said.)¹³ Associate editor Ralph Allen, a good friend of Scott’s from his early days in Winnipeg, would take over the editorship at Maclean’s when Irwin left. A future who’s who of Canadian literature passed through the portals of Maclean’s during the 1940s and ’50s, including June Call­wood, Trent Frayne, John Clare, Robert Fulford, Peter Gzowski, W. O. Mitchell, Peter C. Newman and McKenzie Porter. This was the golden age at Maclean’s, and Scott and Rassy befriended most of these writers.

Log cabin, Lake of Bays, summer 1948 [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Rassy displaying a fine catch, Lake of Bays, summer 1948. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Belmont Lake, September 1947 [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

It was customary for the Maclean’s staff to get together for social occasions with their families and children. We were all very close, recalls Janet Berton, Pierre’s wife. One of the few Maclean’s wives who did not have children yet, she was often recruited for babysitting duty; she began babysitting Neil and Bob in 1947, before her own children were born. Neil was a sweet baby, she recalls, and they called him little Neiler. On one occasion, according to the reminiscences of some of the "Maclean’s kids," Pierre Berton consented to haul a hay wagon full of kids, including Neil, around the farm of Maclean’s art editor Dave Battersby.

The salary for an assistant editor at Maclean’s was modest, so Scott began to write short stories in his spare time to supplement his earnings. He wrote at a roll-top desk in the smallest of the three bedrooms, while Neil and Bob shared a bedroom. Rassy assisted Scott by typing and mailing his stories, which soon began selling to such major magazines as Collier’s, Argosy, Ladies’ Home Journal, Women’s Home Companion and Saturday Evening Post. The Youngs were out of debt by 1947, and they celebrated by buying a well-used 1931 ­Willys-Knight automobile. Scott didn’t yet have a driver’s licence, so the duty of driving the temperamental old vehicle fell to Rassy.

Lake of Bays, summer 1948 [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Neil and Bob with some friends, Lake of Bays, summer 1948. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Neil and Bob, Lake of Bays, June 1948. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Neil, Bob and two female friends, Lake of Bays, summer 1948 [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

A friend had offered the Youngs the use of his cottage at Belmont Lake near Havelock, and they needed a car to get there. The oil-pressure gauge on the Willys-Knight didn’t work, and between Toronto and Havelock it burned eight quarts of oil in billows of black smoke; nevertheless, the Youngs managed to have an enjoyable time — their first vacation as a family. Snapshots of the occasion include one of a 22-month-old Neil posed in the buff near the water’s edge.

He was a plump and chubby-cheeked toddler. Neil was funny as hell, remarks Rassy. Great big eyes, yards of black hair and fat — my God, you could not fill him up. He ate and ate and ate. Wide as he was high.¹⁴ He enjoyed pushing a toy wheelbarrow around the spacious backyard at 335 Brooke Avenue while Bob played ball with Scott. Neil would avidly point at whatever caught his attention and cryptically exclaim, Dombeen! — his first word as recalled by his father. Even at this early age Neil was known to dance a little jig in his playpen when music came on the radio or record player. Rassy recalls that he was especially fond of an old 78 recording of Pinetop Smith’s Boogie-Woogie. Scott wrote, His whole body moved to the rhythm; it was his unconscious parlour trick.¹⁵

Neil’s early life was not without some real health concerns. Scott remarked that Neil used to get anything that came along.… [He] had pneumonia three times when he was a baby.¹⁶ But he recovered well from these periodic setbacks and continued to enjoy a healthy appetite.

In June 1948 Scott quit his job at Maclean’s to attempt a career as a full-time fiction writer. The Youngs disposed of their Willys-Knight after only eight months and bought a brand-new Monarch with $2,100 in cash from the proceeds of the sale of their house. Scott soon learned how to drive, and the family enjoyed the summer in a rustic rented waterfront log cabin on Lake of Bays in the Muskoka district, a couple hours’ drive north of Toronto.

Neil and Bob spent much of their time fishing or swimming in a sandy cove that Scott had cleared of stones. A series of photos taken that summer shows Neil standing in shallow water playing happily with a wooden fruit basket, filling the basket with water, then watching in fascination as it dribbled out. The fruit baskets were more customarily used to collect wild strawberries, which Rassy would bake into pies. Scott wrote every day, though he failed to sell any of the stories he produced during this time. Friends often came to visit, usually other writers and editors. Scott recalled this time with his young family as his best summer ever.

One family who visited the cabin on Lake of Bays was writer Max Braithwaite, his wife, Aileen, and their three children, Beryl, Sharon and Chris. Max had met Scott while serving in the Canadian navy. They shared an interest in writing, and both hailed from the prairie provinces — Scott from Manitoba, Max from Saskatchewan.

Eldest daughter Beryl,¹⁷ then 12 and already well-known as the lead in the CBC radio program Maggie Muggins, recalls a day in Lake of Bays when the children were being corralled by their parents to come in for dinner. Neil, excited by all the activity, dashed past Beryl toward the dock and tumbled into the water. Beryl, a strong swimmer, instinctively jumped in fully clothed and pulled him out, perhaps averting a dire outcome.

Although Beryl was considerably older than the other children, she recalls that Bob and Neil were both nice kids. Neil was a chubby, funny little guy, lots of black spiky hair and big eyes.

Other visitors that summer included John and Lenore Clare; Ralph and Birdeen Allen; Trent Frayne and June Callwood, with their daughters Jesse and Jill; and Scott’s brother Bob, his wife, Merle, and their daughters Penny, Marny and Stephanie. There was occasionally tension during these get-togethers. Rassy was uncomfortable with Birdeen and Merle, who had previously been emotionally involved with Scott, and she wasn’t shy about sharing her concerns with him.

BY THE END OF SUMMER the cottage had grown uncomfortably chilly. The Youngs relocated to a rental house in Jackson’s Point, a small resort town on Lake Simcoe north of Toronto. This large house also tended to be cold, the chill offset by the big cookstove in the kitchen. They shared the premises with their blue-grey cat Mary and Bob’s dog Skippy, a cross between golden Labrador and Dalmatian. Scott had still not sold even one of the stories he wrote during the summer, so finances were tight.

Charlie Abbs, a boy who lived next door, was kind to Neil and often took him out to play. Charlie was about nine or ten, and every time Neil saw a boy around that age he called him Chowlie.

Young family home, Jackson’s Point, 1948-49. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Rassy, Neil and Bob playing with the family pets, Jackson’s Point, 1948-49. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Clockwise from top: Beryl Braithwaite, Sharon Braithwaite, Bob Young, Neil, Chris Braithwaite. Beryl rescued Neil from drowning when he was 2-1/2 years old. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Uncle Bob,¹⁸ Aunt Merle and the girl cousins¹⁹ were regular visitors at Jackson’s Point. The three girls were about the same age as Bob and Neil and enjoyed playing with the boys. The family pets also joined in on the fun and were well-loved by the children.

Writers June Callwood and Trent Frayne were frequent visitors. Frayne had met Scott when they shared lodgings in a ramshackle boarding house at 55 Donnell Street in Winnipeg in 1938. Scott was a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press at the time and Frayne was a cub sportswriter at the Winnipeg Tribune. Ralph Allen, who also became a friend to Scott and Frayne, was a sports reporter at the Tribune. Scott and Allen were the first to make their moves to Toronto, and Frayne followed shortly. Frayne met June Callwood while both worked at the Globe and Mail, and they married in 1944.

Callwood contrasted the starkly different temperaments of the Young boys — Bob was outgoing and full of bluster, while Neil was much more reserved: Neil was a sullen, fat, dark-eyed baby. Not a happy baby, not a smiler, not a joiner. Not getting much. Neil got good primary care, but he didn’t get affection, hugs, from either of his parents. So he became a little watcher.²⁰ Rassy had her hands full with her two children and wrangled with them on a regular basis; Scott’s attempts to smooth things over only further infuriated her.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1949 Scott took the family to visit Rassy’s parents at their cottage on Lake Brereton in the Whiteshell Forest Reserve in eastern Manitoba. It was a memorable drive. Neil and Bob shared the back seat with their dog and five felines — Mary had recently had four kittens, sired by a neighbour’s male cat named Charlie. Mary didn’t like travelling: every time the family stopped, she would take one of her kittens from the basket and bolt out of the door. Scott fielded kittens on the first bounce²¹ during the entire long drive. The Youngs and their pets arrived intact on Friday, July 1, the start of the Canada Day long weekend, and the family soon found homes for the thriving kittens.

Other guests at the cottage that summer were Neil and Toots Hoogstraten and their children, Bill and Janis. Bill remembers sleeping in a tent in the backyard with Bob Young, since all the beds in the cottage had been taken. Toots, writing under the name Vinia Hoogstraten, composed a humorous short story about the family’s experiences that summer. It was Bill who provided the title for the piece — Sleeps Twelve.

One day Bill was hiking along the path from the lake to the cottage when he noticed Neil — a chubby, happy kid at four years old — walking a short distance ahead, singing to himself. As he caught up he heard Neil belting out I got a bloodsucker on my leg in several verses. (Perhaps Neil’s first musical composition, Bill has speculated.) Sure enough, it turned out there was a well-fed leech clinging to his ankle. At the cottage, the traditional treatment of table salt was administered and the leech was successfully disengaged.

During the winter and spring of 1948-49, Scott had been hunting for a home to buy, this time with the assistance of a government land-settlement plan for ex-servicemen called the Veterans’ Land Act. He had discovered an ideal house in a small Ontario town called Omemee, and in mid-August the family left Manitoba and enrolled Bob for the fall school term. (A kennel shipped Skippy and Mary back east in September.)

Omemee would prove an idyllic home for Neil during the next five years. But it was impossible to ignore the shadows that had begun to fall over the family. It was in Omemee that the first cracks appeared in Scott and Rassy’s relationship. And to add to the tension, these were the days before the Salk vaccine, when every family with young children feared the spectre of a polio epidemic.

ó 2 ó

OMEMEE AND BEYOND

I am a child

I’ll last a while

You can’t conceive

Of the pleasure in my smile.

— Neil Young, I Am a Child

IN OMEMEE, THE YOUNG FAMILY lived in a detached red-brick two-storey (plus attic) turn-of-the-century home at 33 King Street West. Located on five acres of land on the town’s main thoroughfare, the property included a large barn-like structure and a few apple trees out back. The Youngs purchased the house for $5,400 from its former owner, an elderly woman named Mrs. Haygarth.

A large and welcoming front porch opened into an entryway and then into a spacious kitchen in the middle of the home. Some smaller family rooms were located off to the side and a more intimate summer kitchen was situated at the back. A stairway led up to the second floor, where there were three bedrooms — a large master bedroom and two smaller ones, one of which was Neil’s.

Scott Young did his writing on a big Underwood typewriter in the house’s attic, a warm, generous space with a peaked ceiling and small windows at either end. In a fax sent to Scott and his third wife, Maggie, in 1992, Neil writes, As I pound this out I can’t help but think about Daddy typing in the attic in Omemee. ²² And in an interview with Jimmy McDonough, he recalls, I can still remember goin’ up the steps, up into the attic. He’d be on the typewriter and I’d just walk up and stand there looking at him — my head was just a little bit higher than his desk. He never, never got mad at me. It was always ‘Nice to see you.’ ²³

Many years later Neil was asked if the process of writing his memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, made him feel more connected to his father. I always remember that my dad used to call me Windy, he said. That was what he called me ­be­cause I always had ideas.… He had a big old Underwood and it was on the third floor of our house up in the attic with little windows and the peaked ceilings and everything. He had a couple of doors that he put on sawhorses up there and he had his study up there. That’s where he wrote his books. He was up there every day.… It was a rule that no one could go up and talk to him while he was writing, so I went right up. I would ask, ‘What are you writing about?’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t know … I found that if you just sit down and start writing that all kinds of things happen.’ ²⁴

Pastoral Omemee welcome, circa 1950. [Courtesy of Joan Rehill. From the September 9, 1950, issue of the Toronto Telegram. © 1950 QMI Agency / Harold Whyte.]

33 King Street West. [© 2009 Sharry Wilson]

Santa Claus Parade, Omemee, December 1949. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26)]

Omemee is a bucolic village on the banks of the Pigeon River, about 140 kilometres east of Toronto, situated between the cities of Lindsay and Peterborough. Founded in 1820, the town took its name from the Algonquin word omimi, which echoed the sound pigeons made. King Street crosses the Pigeon River on what is locally known as the White Bridge (or Highway Bridge), a cement structure built in 1933. The population was approximately 460 when the Youngs moved to Omemee in 1949.

Neil and Bob often indulged in the simple pleasures of a small-town boyhood, including swimming, fishing off the ledge under the Mill Bridge, and catching turtles and frogs in the muddy shallows. Scott took Neil and Bob for long drives in the country, singing old songs to entertain them, often accompanied by the family dog Skippy. (Neil and Skippy were inseparable, seemingly attached at the hip.) ²⁵ Early television programs were another part of Neil’s nostalgic memories of Omemee. Saturday-morning favourites included The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy, and the family passed companionable evenings with The Honeymooners, Jack Benny, The Perry Como Show, Dragnet, This Is Your Life and The $64,000 Question. Bedtime stories consisted of one chapter per evening from the popular Thornton W. Burgess children’s series with characters such as Reddy Fox, Jimmy Skunk, Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Blacky the Crow. Rassy and Scott had read their older son the same stories a few years earlier. I think Neil would probably agree. Bob Young remarks, if there’s anywhere either of us would point to as home, it would be Omemee. ²⁶

Four-year-old Neil fishing on a bridge over the Pigeon River. [Trent University Archives, Scott Young fonds (90-003 Box 26). © 1950 QMI Agency / Harold Whyte]

Neil’s nostalgic memories of Omemee are suggested in the lyrics to Helpless (There is a town in north Ontario / With dream comfort memory to spare / And in my mind I still need a place to go / All my changes were there), although he has stated that the town in north Ontario celebrated in the song is actually an amalgamation of several places he recalls fondly from his childhood: Omemee’s a nice little town. Sleepy little place.… Life was real basic and simple in that town. Walk to school, walk back. Everybody knew who you were. Everybody knew everybody. ²⁷

The September 9, 1950, edition of the Toronto Telegram devoted an entire page to the delights of life in Omemee. An article titled Omemee Kids Like School remarked on the fact that Omemee schoolchildren had nature at their doorstep. Another such article included a photo of a smiling four-year-old Neil proudly holding a 20-pound muskie. (The photo was faked: the fish was frozen.)

Neil holding a 20 lb. frozen muskie, August 1950. [From the September 9, 1950, issue of the Toronto Telegram. © 1950 QMI Agency / Harold Whyte]

Long-time Omemee resident Joan Rehill recalls that Neil would sometimes pay a visit to the convenience store where her husband, Willard, sold fishing tackle and supplies. Willard was a talented muskie fisherman, and Neil often asked for his help putting a fishhook on the end of his crude fishing pole — a stick with a string on the end of it. Willard thought Neil looked more like a Zeke, and called him by that nick­name whenever he saw him. (Neil would eventually name his firstborn son Zeke, perhaps a nod to Willard Rehill’s affectionate nickname.)

As a budding fisherman, Neil ran into more difficulties with fishhooks, occasionally embedding them in his skin: God, Rassy remarked, Neiler had little pinprick scars all over his stomach for years. ²⁸ On one memorable occasion when he was five, Neil hooked himself in the abdomen and sought assistance from Austin Hayes, whose family home was close to the Mill Bridge and who, after raising four sons, was well-versed in the removal of fishhooks. Mr. Hayes retrieved a pair of pliers and carefully worked out the hook, then disinfected the wound with iodine and applied a Band-Aid. Neil went back to his fishing.

The Hayes family were good friends of the Youngs; Jay Hayes, son of patriarch Austin, often hunted ducks with Scott in the surrounding countryside. Bob also enjoyed hunting and sometimes joined his father, but Neil refused to have anything to do with the activity. (He didn’t object to eating the ducks, however, once Rassy had cleaned and cooked them.)

The Youngs also befriended another family, the Allens. Writer Robert Thomas Allen was a professional colleague of Scott and lived with his family in Omemee for three years starting in 1951. Robert, with his wife, Helen, and their daughters, Jane and Mary, lived just north of town on a rental property called Glen Farm. It was a working farm: the Allens lived in the gorgeous farmhouse while a farmer from the community planted and harvested. The Allen family had free reign over the rest of the property, and the children enjoyed roaming over it. There were interesting outbuildings to explore, including a summer kitchen where the family’s cats lived and gave birth, an abandoned silo and a shady barn where an old horse carriage had endured for countless seasons. Townspeople enjoyed skating on Finnegan’s Pond, a short distance north of Glen Farm. The pond was also a popular destination during summer months.

The Young and Allen families often traded visits. Jane recalls that Scott and Rassy were guests at a corn roast her parents held in the fields behind their house one summer evening. It was an adults only party, so Jane and Mary had to peer through their bedroom windows to catch